Service providers commonly find it valuable to allow bursty traffic from customers into the communications network and, similarly, from the network towards customers. To accommodate these traffic bursts, service providers often set a guaranteed service rate and a maximum burst rate in a service contract (e.g., a Service Level Agreement). The service provider may guarantee a fixed rate for the services provided to the customer, but also allow the customer to transmit or receive information at a higher rate, up to the maximum burst rate, when there are accommodating resources in the network.
Due to the increased volume of traffic associated with these bursts, devices in the network, such as switches, may become congested. Conventional Ethernet networks lack the necessary control mechanisms for handling bursty traffic while still maintaining the intrinsic benefits of the Ethernet networking technology. Many current designs use a buffer to hold excessive traffic when there is congestion or a need for congestion avoidance downstream, and transmit the buffered traffic at the available downstream capacity. Such a design introduces the following drawbacks, however. Since buffer size is limited, packet loss may be experienced in those situations where the excessive traffic causes the buffer to overflow. Such packet loss leads to an unfavorable impact on the service contract. Moreover, buffering introduces delay and delay variation, which may degrade the quality of the services supported.
Another conventional approach to handling bursty traffic involves the use of PAUSE messages, as defined in IEEE Std 802.3, 2000 Edition. In this approach, when a network device detects congestion on an outgoing link, the network device automatically sends a PAUSE message to all upstream devices to which the network device is connected, indicating that the flow of traffic from those upstream devices should temporarily cease. Upon receipt of the PAUSE message at the upstream devices, each device automatically transmits a PAUSE message to each other upstream device to which that device is connected, and so on.
This approach also has some drawbacks. For instance, assume that a customer's network devices are operating at or below the guaranteed service rate defined in their Service Level Agreement. If a network device that is downstream of the customer's devices experiences congestion or receives a PAUSE message, that device will automatically transmit a PAUSE message to the customer's devices causing the devices to temporarily stop transmitting packets. Since the customer's devices are operating at or below their guaranteed service rate, the downstream device unnecessarily restricts the flow of traffic from the customer's devices. Requiring network devices that are operating within their guaranteed service rate to temporarily stop transmitting packets leads to an unfavorable impact on the service contract.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for systems and methods that improve flow control in an Ethernet-based networking environment.